Journalists and Compensation for Blogging

Posted on March 17, 2006

MarketWatch.com has a little snippet about reporters at the Washington Post who want to be paid for the their blogging work but are currently not being compensated.

Editors at the Washington Post are wrestling with discontent from reporters who think they should be paid extra for contributing to a group Web log. The Washington City Paper reported staffers on the Post's metro section asked for extra money after learning some prominent byliners were being paid for Web logs while they would not be.
"What they told us was that a single marquee name like [Marc] Fisher or [Joel] Aschenbach, who has sole responsibility for doing this -- they're the ones who get compensated," said Eric Weiss, a D.C. government and politics reporter.
A metro-section editor, Robert McCartney, told reporters the Post's attorneys had determined it could compel employees to blog, the City Paper added. A representative of the Post's Newspaper Guild unit said the question of whether blogging is mandatory remains "unsettled."

We know Chicago Tribune sports columnist Rick Morrissey has mentioned that he isn't getting paid for the sports blog he also now writes for the Chicago Tribune. These journalists are spending extra time, creating extra content so it is unclear why they are not being compensated -- logically it sounds like they should be rewarded. There are numerous media companies requiring their reporters to start blogs -- how many of these journalists are being asked to write a daily blog in addition to their regular articles and columns for no additional pay?